But
here it is, I was thinking, he wants to see me, wants me to come
up a stinking freight elevator. How could I go? Turn my head to
the wall, and not watch the comments or the wisecracks of the
white elevator tender. He suffers segregation, but no more than
he must. He never invited it. Hell! Guess he'd better go see him
now, he [Christian] wouldn't like to go after he [Saxon] was
dead. White folks always think of Negroes as being child-like in
their sorrow.

Hell!
What's the use? A white man is born to his thoughts, just as a
Negro is born to exploitation. Change things around and neither
of them would be comfortable for a while. But some people never
want that sort of thing.

He
opened the shrimp bag to get some shrimps and the cat Belzebub,
caught his attention by his constant meowing that had been going
on all the while. He took out the bag and looked down, Belzebub
started forward, waving his long bushy tail in delicious, feline
anticipation. . . . He opened his hands and took out a shrimp to
its continual meowing, and placed it between the forefinger and
thumb of his right hand, and reached it towards the cat. It
snapped at the morsel instinctively, but with far more delicacy
than it had done several months ago when it first came to the
house. Then it would have been your hand and the meat--now he had learned nice
distinctions of flesh.

Study of the blacksmith
tradition and New Orleans famous lace balconies and
fences.

Acclaimed
during his life as the unofficial poet laureate of
the New Orleans African-American community, Marcus
Christian recorded a distinguished career as
historian, journalist, and literary scholar. He was
a contributor to Pelican's
Gumbo Ya Ya, and also wrote many articles
that appeared in numerous newspapers, journals, and
general-interest publications.